Mediachain Labs launches blockchain-based content attribution engine to protect content creators’ ownership

New York startup Mediachain Labs has announced the launch of Mediachain Attribute Engine , a blockchain application built using Mediachain, an open media library based on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) that supports multiple blockchains, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. The blockchain application will help users find high-quality and properly attributed images for any visual imaging need - websites, blogs and speeches - while allowing publishers and creators to protect the ownership of their digital content.

Denis Nazarov, co-founder of Mediachain Labs, said in a conversation with Bitcoin Magazine that unattributed content shared on the internet not only breeds plagiarism, but also prevents people from connecting to the content’s creators. He added,

“Attribution is fundamental to the creative process as it ensures creators have a direct connection to their fans, but currently available content attribution systems are inefficient.”

“People care about being able to connect to the creator of content, but it’s not easy to do that right now. It’s easy to copy and paste an image, but that often means you break the link to the creator. That means when someone sees a great image that strikes their fancy, they don’t know who created it or anything else about it.”

“The goal of the Mediachain Attribute Engine is to enable viewers (or listeners, readers) to connect, like, and even tip creators of works they admire directly through the media itself.”

How it works

The creation of Mediachain Attribute Engine is based on Mediachain's Open Media Library project. It allows publishers and content creators to upload their content and attach information to their media, which is then timestamped on the blockchain and stored in IPFS. This information can then be viewed through perceptual search.

Jesse Walden, co-founder of Mediachain Labs, said:

“ Attribution Engin makes attribution as easy as copy and paste, and more importantly, all the data created by Attribution Engine is public and decentralized, which means that any developer can download the data and even extend it by contributing directly to Mediachain. This means that Mediachain attribution can be automatically integrated into any application. This gives developers access to a universal open library of great content that can be used in new and innovative media applications without the need for consumers to manually determine the attribution of their content.”

Users can use Attribution Engine to search the Mediachain open database for images they want to share. Once they find an image they like, they can copy and paste the link html code to their blog or website. The attribution information for the image is embedded in the html code itself, so there is no need to add it manually. Attribution Engine does not currently support sharing images directly to social media sites, but Navarov said they are working on adding this feature.

“The Internet can indeed help creators spread their works to a large number of readers, but when media shares these works like viruses, it often loses all the connections between the work and its creator, such as the source and experience of the work. Mediachain creates a channel to discover the identity of creators and fully connect readers to creators, so that creators can benefit from the spread of their works on the Internet.”

He also said:

“It’s important to note that this means creators have more incentive to publish good content on the network, as opposed to approaches that artificially create scarcity.”

Future Development

Current participants in the Mediachain project include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Getty Images, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and Europeana Collections. All content in the Mediachain database uses a Creative Commons License License; however, Nazarov said their goal is to expand to commercially licensed content, allowing creators and publishers to use their content to make money.

“We are first using Creative Commons licenses to demonstrate how Mediachain works end-to-end. We believe that publicly licensed media is a great fit for a decentralized media repository. However, Mediachain aims to expand to commercially licensed content in the near future. The same channels currently used to send attention directly to creators in the Attribution Engine could also be used to send payments in the future, all without the need for a middleman.

Mediachain currently only accepts attribution content from verified Creative Commons licensed sources, including all Creative Commons licensed images from Flickr. Attribution Engine is currently in private beta, and interested parties can sign up for the public beta.